People usually attribute cause to either dispositional traits or situational factors. What is the difference between dispositional traits and structural factors? Give an example of each.

People usually attribute cause to either dispositional factors or situational factors. Dispositional factors include personal or group traits such as motivation level, mood, or inherent ability. Situational factors are forces outside an individual’s control, such as environmental conditions or bad luck. Both Americans and Africans engage in dispositional thinking to explain the origin and spread of AIDS. Dispositional thinkers in the United States maintain that AIDS is confined to certain groups, notably male homosexuals and IV drug users. Members of these groups get the disease as punishment for engaging in high-risk behavior. Americans also tend to dispositionally regard HIV infection as originating in Africa and as being transmitted through bizarre or promiscuous behavior. Africans, in turn, use dispositional thinking in their tendency to regard AIDS as an “American” disease. In this view, AIDS exists in Africa because Americans have imposed the disease on Africans.